All One. All Kin.

Brijesh is a mother of 2 and a young homemaker in a small village in NW India that has about 200 houses. Most men in this village are involved in agriculture but at times they move to larger cities to find other types of jobs. As for women, they have the option to work in fields during harvest time; however, the majority of them are home makers and are dependent upon their husbands and families for income.

Brijesh had other aspirations though. She’s alway had an entrepreneurial spirit and wanted to start her own business. One day she found a basket in a market and came home and reverse engineered it to realize that she could learn how to make them and sell similar baskets. She sought help from an expert basket maker in a nearby town to learn the process.

After her training, she then created a small collection and set up a booth in a local art fair. She was quite nervous since it was her first time doing this and also afraid to lose her investment. Her family was not supportive of her starting the enterprise and investing the money.

This local art fair is where Matr Boomie’s India team met her. She was very suspicious of our product designer, Riya - who started talking about partnering and producing a large number of baskets. Brijesh, however, was very entrepreneurial and undeterred, and agreed to make some samples for us based on our design specifications. The samples turned out great and when we placed orders with Brijesh, she was ecstatic! As the news of her getting Matr Boomie business started to spread, the basket maker who had originally taught Brijesh contacted us to offer the same product at a lower price.

When Brijesh found out what happened, she was horrified and assumed that we would move our business away from her but we made a conscious decision to keep doing business with her. We supported her in developing her business, improve her product design and quality which has helped her to start marketing her own product locally. This collection has done great for Matr Boomie and has resulted in good business for Brijesh.

She now has a team of 15 women producing these gorgeous baskets and her family supports her 100%. The entire community is very proud of her for building a sustainable enterprise where women now have another option to make an income. As Brijesh builds her business, we will continue to work with her to gain efficiency and make her pricing more competitive. It is a process which takes time but she needed a chance to get started. Fair Trade is that chance.

In this edition of Retailer Scope, the Matr Boomie team had the privilege to explore the topic of visual merchandising with Jeri Webb, Retail Consultant and former Museum Store Director at The Field Museum in Chicago, IL.

Jeri Webb at The Field Museum

As a consultant, Jeri assists clients with all aspects of retail store operations including store design and merchandising, product sourcing, staff development, and financial coaching on achieving positive cash flow. As Director of Museum Stores for ten years at The Field Museum, Jeri led a staff of 50 to oversee all functions of nine stores including permanent, temporary exhibition-related, and online locations. She traveled nationally and internationally with direct buying responsibility for cultural gifts, jewelry and accessories, and development of Field Museum branded products.

Read on to get Jeri’s perspective on how to keep your store visually engaging, what you should look for in a wholesale partnership, and more.

Every great store needs an anchor, an aesthetic, a reason for being.

At the Field Museum, you’ve sourced items from all over the world. How do you determine whether or not certain products would be a good fit for your store?

For the Field Museum Stores I always started with the Field’s incredible 26 million-piece collection. Ranging from the world’s most amazing cultural artifacts to ancient fossils, dinosaurs, and extinct animal species, the collection always held the creative sparks to inspire our stores’ merchandise. Whether I was buying for a temporary exhibition store that might feature a subject like chocolate or for our permanent 6,000 square foot main store, there was always a story to tell. Key considerations for any merchandise mix included who the audience would be: did we need something for everyone, or for the very finest collectors, or for the thousands of children who visited the Museum every year? How could we inspire people to shop and in turn support the Museum with their purchases? If we had a temporary store, how could we insure that there was as much wonderful merchandise for the last customer on the last day of the exhibition as there had been when the store opened? And once that temporary store closed, how could we seamlessly blend that merchandise into one of the other nine stores without making it look forced? Every product under consideration was reviewed for the normal standards of quality and price, but we went further to determine to make sure that it added to the story that we were there to tell.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced when it comes to running a handmade/craft goods retail business and how do you overcome it?

Authenticity and quality are always the gold standards for handmade and craft goods in any store. Finding good design in the modern world is always just a click away, and unfortunately it’s easy to turn those good designs and materials into fast fashion that’s made cheaply and without regard for the artisans’ fine work. Supporting artisans in their home communities and making sure that they are fairly paid for their products should always be the goal for any store that sells handmade. Always consider the company that is wholesaling to you: do they promote the people who are making their products? Do they share the story of how their products are made, what materials they use, and how they find/grow/process those materials? Do they help to educate their retailers so that they in turn can educate their retail customers to spread awareness of fair trade? These points should all be presented front and center of any company’s catalog, website or booth at a wholesale show. Shop carefully and know your wholesale sources.

When there are a wide variety of products, what is the most important aspect of successful merchandising?

A visit to a store always needs to be a journey that makes sense to the customer. As people enter the store, there should be a focus that will keep leading people through the space, increasing the dwell time, keeping them shopping and exploring everything you have to offer.

There is also a fine balance between making your entire merchandise mix look cohesive and having it look so uniform that people get bored and stop shopping. I recently consulted on a store that had been open for about a year. While the merchandise taken piece by piece was good-looking and well-priced when you looked across the store all you could see was a blur of black and white objects. Nothing stood out and demanded to be noticed. There was no focus towards the back wall, there was no clear path leading to a wow section that would lure the customers along the way.

How do you go about creating a special experience for your customers?

It’s that sense of discovery that people find so attractive, that hunter-gatherer spirit. We are so bombarded with information in the world today, so much so that new and truly unique experiences are treasured by the public. Training your staff to really know their merchandise, where it comes from, who made it, and how it was made is critical for any great retailer who wants to sell craft and handmade goods. Customers are hungry for the stories of culture, for links to other people who face similar struggles in everyday life and in expressing themselves through their designs. It starts with the wholesale company inspiring the retail buyer, who in turn passes that information and joy onto the staff, who then excite the store’s shoppers. And when those shoppers share their excitement with their friends and family, your store’s customer base grows.

Is there one easy thing that retailers can do right now to increase sales through visual merchandising?

Change your displays regularly! Move fixtures, swap out the merchandise that’s on them and create new themes. For example, as we head into the fall and winter, think warm cozy colors to inspire shopping for handwoven textiles, teapots and cups, and scented candles. For the holidays create a shop by price, grab-and-go section, or mix textured handmade ornaments in with gifts for men, women, and children. Make the change regularly during slow days so that when busy weekends arrive, you are prepared to show even your most frequent shoppers everything that you have to offer.

And have fun, remember why you wanted a store in the beginning of your retail adventure, and love what you do.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS, CONTACT JERI WEBB AT:

First, Fair Trade applies only to marginalized producers (specifically farmers or artisans) who do not have opportunities to market their products. Most of the time they fall into the poorest group of their community, living without access to basic resources and living wages. This group of producers is usually at risk of being exploited due to lack of education and great obstacles they face to market access. Additional social factors like belonging to an ethnic minority further adds to an artisan falling into a marginalized sector.

Women artisans handcrafting cotton paper journals in North West India.

Because of this, artisans already engaged in trade or those with a decent job and benefits (e.g. a factory job) do NOT qualify as marginalized. Fair Labor standards are primarily focused on fair wages and basic workplace rights for producers.

What sets Fair Trade apart from Fair Labor is the holistic approach to supporting producers. Fair Trade goes way beyond fair wages. Though providing a fair wage to artisans is key, many of them will still find themselves in hardship conditions for several reasons. Here are some examples that producers face:

Organizational challenges like inadequate market knowledge and lack of production infrastructure

Literacy program sponsored by Matr Boomie to women artisans in Rajasthan, India.

Until these issues are addressed, paying an artisan more will not create sustainability. For example, if an artisan does not have access to good quality and well-priced raw material, their product will either be too expensive or of inferior quality. Either would be problematic for sustainable production. An easy shortcut would be to subsidize artisans by purchasing poor quality product or ones that are overpriced. Fair Trade mandates instead that members explore the root of the market issue while empowering the artisan to improve their supply chain; the relationship is a much deeper level of partnership going beyond just buying and selling.

Sometimes Fair Trade is accused of protectionism or lowering product standards. In my opinion, is it quite the opposite. The Fair Trade movement is really about creating a respectful relationship focused on creating business solutions in order to connect more people to trade. From my experience, marginalized artisans can advance to become self-sustainable. That will always be the goal.

Parents in India choose the names of their children carefully and based on special characteristics. One of our talented quality inspectors in Jaipur is a young but unwavering woman named Rani. Meaning Queen in Hindi, Rani could not be a more appropriate title for this amazing leader. Rani grew up with three siblings but raised without a mother. Because of low household income and gender bias, she receive few education opportunities growing up.

Rani at SETU office in India

Rani was married very early and did not have much of a say in choosing her husband. Unfortunately, her husband ended up falling victim to alcoholism. A photographer by profession, at one point Rani’s husband sold his camera to buy alcohol. By this time this happened, Rani was dealing living in poverty and in an abusive marriage.

About 10 years ago, Rani starting working as a quality checker with our India team, SETU. She is a hard worker and always ensured that her personal challenges did not bleed into her work. After joining our team, she began to financially support her family. One of Rani’s children is in need of specialized medical care and she has managed to care and provide for. In spite of her work with SETU, Rani had difficulty getting ahead of her many challenges.

Five years ago, the SETU team moved to a new town. Rani decided to join them. This was a very bold decision since extended conservative family who opposed the move. She was able to convince her husband to move which allowed him a fresh start. We are excited to report that he started working again! Rani also encourage two of her unemployed brothers to move and helped them find jobs.

With the assistance of a SETU-backed loan, Rani was able to purchase an apartment for her family. Having a home has anchored her family with a solid foundation from which to build upon. Through all of the challenges, Rani has maintained a strong work ethic and was recently promoted to Quality Inspector. One of Rani’s goals is to ensure that her children receive a good education and experience some of the blessings in life that she was not afforded.

Rani is truly a Queen of perseverance, hard work, and devotion to her family.

After spending my first two months at Matr Boomie getting my feet wet, I can safely say I now feel at home! I was friends with some of you before I joined the MB marketing team and a fan of other’s work. I look forward getting to know ALL of you over the coming months – hopefully in person!

The challenges that the Fair Trade retail community face are not new to me. My former ethical fashion mentor, Kirsten Dickerson, and I had numerous conversations on how to best grow her brand, Raven + Lily. Do you lead with a mission or do you lead with design? We agreed that is vital that everyone understand the conditions that their clothes and goods were made under. But I further questioned, Would those items be purchased in the first place if the design wasn’t good? I encouraged Kirsten to lead with design and follow with a mission; give customers a great product that also has a beautiful story to tell.

Tomorrow, May 13th we celebrate World Fair Trade Day with the mandate: Be an Agent for Change. As more conventional brands like West Elm, Anthropologie, and Target begin to adopt fair trade ideals, many retailers like yourself have been feeling the pinch of slowed business growth. So I challenged my team, How can we Be an Agent for Change for our Retailers? After much discussion, we realized that our best contribution to you and our artisan partners is increased brand awareness and shared marketing efforts. I think you’ll be excited with what we came up with!

We recently debuted our Ethical Kiosk Program to help you better tell the story behind our products. This beautifully designed stand-alone kiosk with integrated video has been shown to increase sales by over 260%. No joke!

You might have noticed some changes to our email newsletters. We are improving the content of our Newsletter program and anything you read is yours to share with your audience.

We will be launching a new social media campaign next month on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Our marketing efforts benefit more than just us; they are designed for your usage as well. You don’t need our permission to repost but we love it when you tag us!

Manish & Ruchi are in India right now visiting family and artisans. They will be bringing back some amazing supplies for in-store event kits. In a few months, we will be offering ETHICAL EVENTS IN A BOX. This is a fun and creative way for you to engage with your customers without a lot of work!

We’re re-designing an amazing navigation map so that MB fans can easily find you to shop in person.

I office with some of the best marketing pros in the business – Andrés, Joelle, and Cassie are true Fair Trade heroes. Need some help with economical events, better email open rates, or improving your Instagram engagement? Email us any questions at marketing@matrboomie.com. If the problem is more complex than an email response, we will set up a call to help you find an elegant solution. The MB Marketing Team is at your service!

In the coming weeks, you will notice a small change to the entry of our website. Don’t worry, we’re just signing up new friends! All the same beautiful, Fair Trade gifts will be waiting for you on the other side.

India Trip 2016 - New Delhi

Thank you for being an Agent for Change on behalf of those marginalized by poverty, climate change, and economic crises around the world. We stand alongside you working to make a difference in the lives of our artisan partners living in India. And if we are also able to help make a difference in your life, all the better.

Each month, our Austin team gets together for "TED Talk & Tacos" to share inspiration from leaders around the world. In our last gathering, Matr Boomie Customer Service Rep, Cora Kraverath, chose a Ted Talk video by theater producer Jude Kelly on the importance of giving women the opportunity to tell their own story as well as the story of humanity. During the post-video discussion, we brainstormed ways to better share the stories of the women in India that we work with.

Over 50% of our 900 plus artisan partners are now women. We seek to work with as many women as possible and I want to share more on why.

We firmly believe that Fair Trade applies to marginalized producers who have little or no access to trade. Women artisans in a male dominated society like that in India are further constrained by these societal boundaries:

Women (especially mothers) are expected to stay at home and care for the children and household

Women are not given the exposure to participate in trade, travel, or household decision-making

The majority of women artisans are not educated and lack necessary tools to operate an enterprise

With so many obstacles to face, many women artisans are pushed to the vocational sidelines. Unable to generate independent income of their own, the voice of women in some communities can be silenced. Unfortunately, this results in the further strengthening of gender inequity.

These conditions have made increasing opportunities for women artisans a top priority for Matr Boomie. Connecting women in India with employment options is undoubtably a challenging process. Women are less motivated to start working in the beginning as they recognize the many obstacles they have to overcome. They lack confidence in the value of their art as well as in their production abilities. In spite of free training and tools to get started, many families are skeptical of our intentions in seeking out women for work. It isn’t just a fear of Westerners; even designers on our India team (SETU) have had their share of "interesting" experiences trying to connect women to trade opportunities.

There is a silver lining. Once these women start earning an income of their own and build trust in working with us, their confidence levels are boosted and they start to find their footing as artisans. The pride we feel in their accomplishments is further validated when their products are appreciated in the western market.

One last note: With Mother’s Day around the corner, I have been thinking a lot about the role that my wife, Ruchi, plays in our two daughter’s lives. She empowers them daily to trust their voice and let it be heard. Every woman artisan we work with is encouraged to find her voice and use it. We cannot stand by and allow another generation of girls to grows up with mothers whose voices are silenced.

We would love to hear the stories of women in your community so please share them below. Thank you for joining us in empowering women through action and compassion. Happy Mother’s Day!

Last holiday season we were out of stock for many of our best sellers. Working hard on creating and heavily promoting these great products, left our back orders looking ugly, and our warehouse manager Patrick unhappy.

An artisanal supply chain like ours is fairly complex with a number of variables that can cause unexpected delays. Although our retail partners are extremely patient when it comes to backorders, I want to take this opportunity to share some of the reasons of what causes this variability in our supply chain:

Force of Nature: Our artisan partners usually work from home in rural villages. Being exposed to harsh weather conditions like heavy rains, snow, and extreme heat can easily disrupt their daily lives and cause long delays in production.

At times, these villages can be cut off for a long time in such conditions. Some production processes are also quite weather dependent. For example, in the block printing community, artisans depend on hot weather to dry the textiles. As for woodcarvers, they need to wait until the moisture is low in the atmosphere for wood to dry. Each art form has it’s own challenges, and when it comes to Mother Nature, there’s very little we can control.

Rural Connectivity: Rural artisans are dependent on unreliable transportation options to ship their goods, such as train freight or local buses. These options usually have no tracking, and there are times when products are delayed for a week or the cargo gets lost.

Social Events: Artisans are extremely community oriented and social events take precedence over production. Events like marriage, death, and festivals can sometimes push production down by as much as several weeks.

Holi festival in Jaipur, India.

No Backups: In the artisanal supply chain there are no alternatives. Any outage of tools, supplies, power, etc. can disrupt our production plan.

Political Waves: Rural areas are prone to strong political influences which can bring positive or negative results. Nonetheless, political rallies can be a weeklong affair. Last Fall, India had a demonetization drive which brought the entire country to a standstill for over a month.

Quality Rejections: For artisanal goods, the production time is usually 2 to 3 months. Once production is completed, goods are sent to our SETU coordination center where they are inspected for quality. From time to time, products don’t pass the quality test and we have to start production all over again.

A scary list, but why do keep pushing? Two reasons:

Woodcarving artisans in North Central India.

First, in our experience, artisans start to overcome these issues the more they are exposed to trade. This allows them to realize the importance of a dependable supply chain. As they start gaining experience through time, they start finding creative solutions to some of the issues mentioned above. That is why it is important to not shy away from partnering with them. That is the only way they will be able to overcome these hurdles to trade.

Second, these products are simply worth the effort. We strongly believe in the positive impact that each handmade piece creates on the lives of artisans and the planet. We would love to hear your experiences with artisanal supply chains, what works and what keeps you going.

A message from Manish

On our recent trip to India, I was motivated by seeing the change we can make.

Last month was World Fair Trade Month, and now that it’s over we mustn’t forget to stay fixed on Fair Trade principles and keep striving to meet them. When I look back on my journey in Fair Trade over the last 10 years, I think about all we’ve accomplished and overcome — this keeps me going.

I want to share with you these struggles as a way of going deeper into the topic of Fair Trade. The list can get long so I will keep it brief here:

The pursuit for perfect fair trade

Fair Trade is a big commitment, encompassing big principles like Fair Labor practices, environmental stewardship, children's rights, etc. In today's complex supply chain, trying to make sure that we are living up to each of these principles for the over 40 different supply chains we have is a daunting task. Every time we dig deeper into a product's supply chain we find challenges. For example, when we went to a third party contractor for our jewelry artisans that does metal etching, we found artisans were being exposed to chemical fumes. It took our India team, SETU, a year of work to set a new and safe process in place but it can feel like our work is never ending. Will we ever have a 100% fairly traded product?

Leaving some artisans behind

A number of artisans we started working with, especially some rural communities with great need for trade partnerships, turn out to be artisan communities where creating marketable products is most challenging. Though our product design team puts in extra effort to design products for these "at risk" artisans, sometimes we are not able to offer continuous employment to them. With our commitment to long term partnerships and our love for these communities, it feels like a failure to me.

Values vs Value proposition

All the social impact we create is based on economic sustainability for the artisan communities. Our goal therefore is a maximize product sales so we can give more business to artisans. One of the challenges we face in growing sales in the western market is lack of consumer awareness during purchasing. Almost everyone I know will agree that they do not support child labor, yet only a small fraction of those consumers ensure that the products they are buying do not support child labor practices. If our Values are missing from a purely value based purchasing decision, sustainable products do not stand a chance. In this time of technology and awareness, it seems like we are too slow to change our buying pattern as a society.

If we can improve the lives of even a few people, we consider that a win.

Do issues like these bring me down? At times it does but most times no. For me Fair Trade is way of working and not a time-defined end goal. It is a way of working with the mindset of continuous improvement for people and our planet through trade. We keep going deeper one step at time and keep making a difference. We are not perfect but we are proud that we stay committed to our mission and we celebrate every little positive change we make.

The fact that we were able to save 4 to 5 artisans from being exposed to chemical fumes everyday in the metal etching plant is a big deal. I am proud of that, and this is my motivation to keep going. What is yours?

As the writer of this blog series, I want to express my gratitude to our audience for taking the time to go deeper with me into Fair Trade and for sharing your appreciation. I would like to hear more from you about what specific areas you would like me to discuss in future. I also welcome dialog around these pieces through Facebook, Twitter, blog comments or even email (marketing@matrboomie.com). Our different perspectives make us stronger. All one All Kin.

An Importer’s Perspective

As a kid growing up in India, our parents would take us to tourist destinations during the summer break. I remember seeing a lot of gift shops selling artisanal goods to tourists at these places. Those goods were unique since we never saw them in our local daily markets. They also seemed to be reasonably priced. My impression, seeing those artisanal goods being sold plentifully, was that the artisans were getting good business.

When I started working with artisan groups closely, I learned that my earlier notion of artisans having a lot of work could not be further from the truth. Most artisans we work with share their concerns about not having enough work. Also, the prices they can fetch for their crafts through domestic traders are too low to be sustainable. This has lead me to the realization that artisan-made goods don’t automatically equate to healthy returns for the producers who made them.

Artisan-made goods don’t automatically equate to healthy returns for the producers who made them.

The biggest reason why artisans are vulnerable is because they frequently have to face the decision of having no business or selling at a unsustainable price. Before, their crafts were a part of their everyday life but now they are only novelties being sold in tourist shops. To give you an idea, sometimes our Fair Trade purchase price for volume quantity (direct from artisans) is higher than the retail price found at these tourist shops. It’s something that has taken me some time to be OK with.

I now see artisan-made goods in many big box stores at prices so low that I am sure it is not sustainable for artisans. Here’s the big questions: As consumers, should we support that? For the artisans, is selling their goods at low prices better than no business at all?

My sense is clear no for the following reasons:

Unsustainable wages start to push artisans into a cycle of poverty.

Artificially low prices in a few stores has the potential to lower the market pricing for that entire craft which is extremely damaging.

The effects above start to impact an artisan's motivation and pride in their art, which inherently puts the art on its death bed.

For me, artisanal goods made sustainably are more than a piece of art. A happy artisan puts soul into each piece they create. Pieces made by artisans that are struggling and demotivated are devoid of that soul. To me they are only artisanal looking and not really “artisan made.”

Manish Gupta, Co-Founder, MATR BOOMIE

As the writer of this blog series, I want to express my gratitude to our audience for taking the time to go deeper with me into Fair Trade and for sharing your appreciation. I would like to hear more from you about what specific areas you would like me to discuss in future. I also welcome dialog around these pieces through Facebook, Twitter, blog comments or even email (marketing@matrboomie.com). Our different perspectives make us stronger. All one All Kin.

Before I became involved in Fair Trade, any time I would see a child working somewhere, I used to feel angry towards the parents of the kids for sending them to work at such a young age. Also, it was upsetting to hear about trafficking cases where parents would trust their kids with strangers on promises of good jobs in far away cities. I somehow blamed the parents for being greedy.

Working closely with artisans in rural areas, I observed artisans’ children at varying ages supporting them in production. Having in-depth conversations with artisans, I realized that just like any other parent, artisans also want their children to get a good education and just be a child. They don't have their children working in order to make extra cash to spend but simply because the artisan cannot afford to send their children to school. In absence of education, artisans feel that learning art/vocation will allow the child to make a living.

Just like us, parents in India simply want their kids to get an education and just be kids.

In desperate times, parents often have to take huge risks and make sacrifices in hopes that their children will have a better life.

Sometimes in a family of many children, the eldest kids start working early on so together the family can afford to send the younger kids to school. Similarly, I realize that in cases of trafficking, though the parents are suspicious of strangers claiming to find a "good job" for their kids in far away cities, the alternative of not sending the child is a life of poverty and hopelessness. In that desperation, parents are willing to risk the unthinkable outcome by sending their children with strangers.

It makes me emotional, thinking about such brutal face of poverty and how it can strangle human spirit, especially when combined with lack of education, awareness and opportunities. We need high level policy changes to make a profound shift, but one of the key elements in reducing this risk is to strengthen rural economies by supporting rural businesses and artisans. Fair Trade is one of the few strategies that I think can make a significant impact on artisans and the overall economy of their communities through:

Connecting rural artisans to trade allowing them to make a sustainable living for their family through support in design, quality and logistics (Read More)

Long term trade relationships allowing artisans to plan for their future

Providing art form training for youth to enter trade, creating new jobs.

Once the cycle of poverty is broken, there is hope for, and confidence in, a strong future. The most efficient way to stop trafficking is not by intercepting traffickers at borders but by empowering the ones at risk and stopping it from ever happening in the first place.

-Manish Gupta, Matr Boomie Founder

Let's do what we can to break the vicious cycle of poverty for the sake of our most vulnerable world citizens.

Would you like to add to the conversation? Comment below. If there are topics you’d like us to explore in a future blog, comment or send an email to marketing@matrboomie.com. It is our goal to inform people on Fair Trade, our mission, and the global artisan community. As always, we'd love to have you join our social media communities. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.